By MONTE DUTTON

I’ve mentioned it before, but among baseball’s many virtues is the incidence of the unexpected.

I’ve seen a zillion games and listened to a bajillion. That’s not even counting the softball.

Technology multiplies. On Sunday night, I was surfing three college games, one major-league, the end of a NASCAR race and the beginning of an NBA playoff game.

I didn’t watch any of it well. I haven’t even heard what Stephen A. Smith said.

I watched more college baseball than anything else because it was compelling, the way the major leagues won’t be until September.

The darndest things happened.

A 2-to-3 double play on a ball hit about two feet.

A ball fouled into the vicinity of the batter’s front foot that caromed into play and became a base hit. It looked like something from an Adam Sandler film.

Oregon State did not live to play on Monday because an alert Kentucky baserunner scored from second base on a wild pitch because the hurler who uncorked it was crestfallen and neglected to cover the plate.

A head coach and a former head coach were ejected on a home run their own player hit.

Umpires have become characters in the old sitcom Get Smart. They constantly talk to CONTROL in order to control KAOS.

(Yes, I know that Get Smart was on TV before most readers were born. Wikipedia provides all you need to know.)

Since my alma mater deleted baseball from the website because there is none, I have turned into a sentimental old softie.

I grieved for Clemson on Sunday night. A team isn’t supposed to lose a game filled with such gallantry. Stephen King would’ve thought, Nah, too cruel. It’ll never sell.

What have I become?

I haven’t rooted for the Tigers so hard since I was 18. I lose all my stage points because I also rooted for the Gamecocks. I wanted Wofford to win. I wanted High Point, which won the Big South, to win.

In the back of my mind, I’ve got this premonition that my friends are organizing an intervention.

Okay, it’s out of my system.

Too many folks shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, that’s the way it is.”

Too few say, “There’s got to be a better way,” and fewer still put any thought into it, or, God forbid, time.

The spread of NILs is creating major and minor markets, haves and have-nots, and billionaires playing ballpark poker against mere millionaires.

I’m not against college athletes receiving money. It’s just not good for a team to have a pecking order.

If money takes over, there won’t be enough of it to go around.

My proposal is that every varsity athlete, football or field hockey, receives the same base amount from the colleges with that kind of money.

Maybe it’s a $1,000 a month.

Beyond that, everyone goes by the original concept of NIL: Name, Image and Likeness.

The star quarterback can line up payment for popping into the screen of State Farm commercials. The left guard may show up in ads for Clyde’s Barber Shop.

I’m sure entrepreneurs are out there willing to book such gigs for a modest commission.

In other words, proceeds of the school slush fund are distributed equitably, and individuals can seek whatever the market allows.

The current scenario is undermining the notion of a team, on which society depends far beyond the boundaries of a sports venue.

Meanwhile, the goose that lays the golden eggs is under considerable fire.

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